Which video codecs are used in TrueConf software?

When TrueConf users run video conferences, VP8 SVC codec is used for video stream encoding. To connect with SIP/H.323 endpoints (software or hardware), H.264 and H.263 video codecs are supported. At the moment, H.264 is considered to be the most widely used video codec for video conferencing.

VP8 is a video codec with a free license, which is not inferior in quality to H.264 video codec. Thanks to its open architecture, VP8 has some handy features for video conferencing: high compression index, great speed of encoding.

VP8 was improved by TrueConf engineers by adding support for the SVC scalable video coding technology. This technology allows each subscriber’s device to receive a set of streams during the conference.The parameters of streams (e.g. resolution and FPS) correspond to the video layout currently selected by the user.

In fact, thanks to this technology we can avoid using MCU server during video conferences. Additionally, there is no need in video mixing and re-encoding for each of the participants.